Re: (ITS#6598) EXOP to return number of children of a (sub)tree

[masarati@aero.polimi.it]

> quanah@zimbra.com wrote:
>> Full_Name: Quanah Gibson-Mount
>> Version: NA
>> OS: NA
>> URL: ftp://ftp.openldap.org/incoming/
>> Submission from: (NULL) (75.111.45.108)
>>
>>
>> It would be extremely useful to have an extended operation that allows
>> querying
>> the number of children of a given (sub)tree, so that one can avoid
>> iterating
>> through the entire subtree to determine this number.
>>
> Might as well ask for the numSubordinates operational attribute to be
> implemented instead, this doesn't seem to merit a new exop. And for
> numSubordinates, see the -devel archives for why we chose not to implement
> it.
>
> In either case, the server still needs to iterate over all entries
> internally,
> and the result has to take ACLs and entry disclosure into account.

An exop would allow to easily discriminate between intentional and
"catchall" requests, like "+".  Moreover, it might make sense to
discriminate at least between subtree and onelevel number of subordinates;
this would require two distinct operational attributes, or a parameter in
the exop.

I'm not endorsing either solution, I'm just pointing out possible pros and
cons.

p.